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Ashok Gulabrao Bondre vs. Vilas Madhukarrao Deshmukh & Ors.

Criminal Appeal · 2023 INSC 724Decided 12 Apr 2023
Criminal Appeal No. 1931 of 2011
B.R. Gavai · Sanjay Karol

Background

The appellant filed a private criminal complaint alleging that the respondents had forged a personal recognizance bond and surety bond, and that these forged documents were later filed in a separate criminal case pending against him before a Magistrate in Ramtek, Maharashtra. The Magistrate dismissed the complaint, reasoning that under Section 195 of the Cr.P.C., a complaint about forgery of a document produced in court can only be filed by the court itself (not a private party) unless a specific procedure is followed. On revision, the Additional Sessions Judge agreed that a private complaint was barred but suggested the appellant could separately apply under Section 340 Cr.P.C. for the Magistrate to look into it; the High Court, in a petition under Section 482 Cr.P.C., upheld this view. The appellant challenged this before the Supreme Court, arguing the alleged forgery happened before the documents were ever filed in court, so the bar should not apply.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court traced a line of its own precedents, including the Constitution Bench ruling in Iqbal Singh Marwah v. Meenakshi Marwah, and held that the bar under Section 195(1)(b)(ii) of the Cr.P.C., requiring a complaint to come from the court rather than a private citizen: applies only when the alleged forgery is committed after the document is produced or filed in a court proceeding (i.e., while it is "in the custody of the law"). Since the appellant's case was that the documents were forged before they were ever filed in the earlier criminal case, the bar did not apply, and he was entitled to file a private complaint. The orders of the Magistrate, the Sessions Court and the High Court were all set aside, and the matter was sent back to the Magistrate to decide the appellant's original complaint on its merits within one year, given that the dispute had already been pending for nearly a decade.

Lesson Learnt

If you believe a document was forged before it was ever produced in a court case (rather than forged as part of manipulating an ongoing case), you are not barred from filing a private criminal complaint about it: the special procedure requiring the court itself to file the complaint applies only to forgery committed after the document enters the court record.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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